Introduction

Gender is making quite a splash on the political scene. Who could have guessed it? Politicians appear actually worried – very worried – that people might be able to choose a different gender than the one their parents bestowed on them, and this makes them worry, as well, that “civilization” is under threat, and they are pulling out all the stops. They are going after universities for their bathroom signs and sports team policies, they are going after medical professionals, and they are even going after military personnel. The choice to name oneself is causing such a reactionary stir, even while the promise of “choice” is a rallying cry for such reactionary causes as charter school and voucher advocacy, anti-vax, and opposition to single-payer health insurance! “Gender ideology,” they say (without defining what that is), imperils the very foundations that have taken 2000 years or so to build; it has the strength and ingenuity to turn everything to dust! As Judith Butler lays out in Who&s;s Afraid of Gender?, the Catholic Church&s;s opposition to “gender ideology” as anti-nature and anti-God feeds an international effort, at the level of both state and interstate agencies, to rout out our efforts to recreate gender. What exactly are they worried about?